We have just installed some mercenaries that players can hire to help them with their adventuring. There are some guidelines to follow when using the hirelings. The code attempts to make it so you can't accidentally violate the guidelines, but please let us know of any issues. The first guideline is that you should not have more than 1 hired mercenary for every 3 members in your party.. so party size 1-3, 1 merc, party size 4-6, 2 mercs, etc. The second is, the mercenaries are not allowed to be used for pkill. They should try to go away when you get into a pkill, but it will likely take a round or so for them to disappear, so attack somebody using a mercenary at your own risk. The third guideline, is the mercenaries aren't supposed to attack city guards. They should behave in the same way to city guards as they do to pkill, if they
don't, please let us know.

The strength of the hired mercenaries will probably get tweaked as we see how often players get them killed. Also, dialogue might be a little bit wonky with them, we will be updating that as we see how they behave.

IC: Rumors have spread about a tent popping up to the west of Shadow. The whispers say that a small mercenary unit received permission to operate in the area. Little else is known.

Yay! I claim credit for being the first player to suggest something like this. I suppose next after this you will include experts to be hired?_________________PM me in the forum here when you want me on to RP or dungeon dive. The forum will automatically notify me by e-mail. Then my e-mail will send me a text message. Then I will get on likely within minutes.

Well I guess other than having the option to get a healer instead of a mercanary shadowgate doesn't have much use for experts. Like porters, Link Boys, Valets, Drivers, Sages, Spies ect._________________PM me in the forum here when you want me on to RP or dungeon dive. The forum will automatically notify me by e-mail. Then my e-mail will send me a text message. Then I will get on likely within minutes.

Well actually, there's a longer term plan that is going to allow players to customize their own NPCs, but it might be a couple years before I get finished with that. Can only fit so many coding hours into the day and still maintain sanity.